September 8, 2011
4:00 pm
Hello New Journal,
I have currently finished my WSC homework and my weightlifting homework, but I still have to do my computer science homework and my Economics homework. I don’t know how I feel about computer science, but I had a sort of moment in Economics class on the first day of the semester, like “This is what I want to learn. This is what I want to be doing.” And, it’s a major that’s so relevant to what’s going on today in the world, and the more I learn about it, the more I worry that the world is turning to shit (and I hate the word “shit” but it’s basically how my professor described it). And my professor seems like a cool guy. He definitely has that left-leaning bias that I read about on ratemyprofessors.com but I don’t know if that’s entirely a bad thing. It’s just such a huge major with so much going on, and so much changing and disproving. And it’s constantly evolving in a way that there’s really no central starting point. I can read this newspaper and be totally confused about a lot of things.
I got the Wall Street journal today, so I hope I’m going to read a bit more from it. I read the New York times from time to time last year. Not the whole thing, but the first couple of pages, and I want to try to read more. Not everything is 100% correct, and there’s a lot I don’t understand, but I think it’s better to know a little than to know nothing. Economics as a major scares me in ways that being a computer science major doesn’t. There’s a lot less job security, and economists don’t really know how to make sense of the economy. It took over ten years to screw everything up, so it’s going to take a lot longer than that to put everything back together. I’m not out to change the world or anything, but I would like to figure out how the world works, and become a person that is intelligent. It’s just there’s so much I want to learn, and the more I learn, the more I realize that there’s so much that I don’t know.
And with economics, there’s so much going on in the world so it’s constantly relevant and irrelevant at the same time. With computer science, it’s about learning new information and adding it unto existing information that I already know. With computer science, it’s about learning programs and languages, and creating new things. But with economics, you have to form opinions on things. There’s so much that people don’t understand; that todays generation doesn’t understand. Especially me. I have no idea what’s going on in the world, and it’s so daunting when I try to figure things out. So, economics scares me, but in the good way I think. The more I learn about it, the more I want to know. It’s all so fascinating, and I just wish I had so much more time in a day to learn it all.
There’s a lot of things I want to talk to you about, and hopefully I can write a few journal entries a week this semester.
First thing’s first, I should probably mention that I like girls. Not in a friendship kind of way, but in the way that I like guys. I find them both sexually appealing. And with girls, I never think about dating them, but I do get aroused by them, and I am sexually attracted to them. I tried denying it for a long time, but the truth is the truth, and I’ve faced it. And I know it and accept it about myself, but I’m still not ready for the world to know. I mean, I know my friends would be mostly supportive about it. My parents wouldn’t really care. It wouldn’t be their first choice I know, but they wouldn’t love me any differently, and that’s all I can hope for. However, I know some people who wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with it. I know Maria would be uncomfortable. My roommate Jody would as well, and if I ever did come out, I don’t know how comfortable she would be living with me. But I know that in my heart that in the end, it has nothing to do with either of them. It has to do with me.
It’s this sort of thing in my gut, this pressure that I’m holding. This secret that no one knows, and I hate having it.
But like I said, the people that mean the most to me wouldn’t change with it. I’ve contemplated telling Elisabeth about it, but I feel like once I tell one person, I need to tell other people soon after. I don’t want there to be this huge gap between the first time I tell someone, and the time I tell everyone else. I know that if I told anyone first, it would probably be Elisabeth. I mean, most of my friends other than Jody and Maria wouldn’t be uncomfortable with it. For Ali, it would just be another bisexual friend to add to her list. I doubt Mariel would care. I’ve suspected for a while now that Tricia isn’t 100% straight. It’s just that I’m not ready for the world to know yet.
It’s tough keeping this big secret inside, but I feel like if I let one person know, I have to let the rest of the world know, and I don’t want the word getting out until I’m ready to tell everyone. Because if it gets out to one person, it could get out to everyone, and I don’t want anyone I care about finding out before I tell them.
So, I’ve known that I like boys since I was four, and I’ve know that I like girls since I was five and in kindergarten and had a crush on my friend Julia. There really haven’t been too many girls that are actual friends or people that I know that I’ve had crushes on. I’ve just always pictured myself dating boys. But it makes me wonder if I’m missing out on something, you know? So lately, I’ve been imagining myself dating girls. I can’t fully imagine having a girlfriend, but I can’t really imagine how I’d be with a boyfriend either. I don’t know if the reason why I don’t picture myself dating girls is because of the societal restraints placed upon same sex couples, and I’ve unconsciously only imagined guys. Or maybe it’s because although I’m attracted to girls, I wouldn’t fair well with them in a relationship. It’s hard to know, because there’s so much stigma with being gay, and there’s even more of a stigma about being bisexual. My dad believes that being bisexual is just on the way to being gay. And I think that’s true for some people, but I know that’s not the truth for me. I’ve questioned if I really like guys sexually. But, I know that when it comes down to it, I do. I like guys and girls, and I don’t know why the world has to make such a big deal out of it. Why do I have to make a big deal out of it?
And by being in the closet, I’m perpetuating the idea that it’s something to be kept secret; that it’s something to be ashamed of. It’s not, and it shouldn’t be, so why do I find it so difficult to let the world know? Ugh, so that’s my entry for now. Maybe I’ll post this online somewhere so that I can keep a record of it. We’ll see.
Love,
Gill
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